


Hyperdrive my Heart

by archea2



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Crack, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Pining Poe Dameron, Romance, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6622297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written to fill this prompt on the TFA kink meme: </p><p>Access to Poe's collection of trashy romance books + Finn keeping a journal/writing for therapy = Finn: popular new erotica novelist. </p><p>The only problem is that his debut book is starting to be popular on-base, and someone is definitely going to notice that one of the lead characters bears a striking resemblance to Poe...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Healing is holistic," the Medic Guide - apparently stranded from Kegan - had told him. (Finn had been refered to him after Dr. Kalonia decreed him sound of body, mind pending inquiry.) "Healing is the encrypted code in your soul's hands, waiting for your body's approval."  
  
"Huh?" Finn said, his mind still muzzy after the long coma.  
  
But General Organa had nodded, her face as earnest as ever, and later come back with BB-8 in tow. Finn learnt that he was (a) grounded, and (b) to start a diary. For holistic purposes, whatever that meant. Since he was too weak to focus at length on a datapad, a droid protocol was in order, in which Finn would dictate and BB-8 record or edit at his request.   
  
"But the missions," Finn had begun, only for Poe to barge in, his hair tousled and his grin resplendent, and seal the deal with a hand clapped to Finn's shoulder. "My bunk, my droid. Anything to get you well," Poe said. He smelt of sun, sweat and the harsh ripple of victory, and Finn's body approved unconditionally.  
  
Later on, he mumbled five words, got a soft bleep in answer, and went back to sleep.   
  
_Star beaten. Heart still beating._

* * *

  
  
He still felt green at making sentences, _long_  sentences, some with two verbs and counting. The First Order favoured men and women of few words; Phasma was known for conducting ten-squad assaults using one clipped statement and a few tilts of the head. Finn's new freedom of speech was giddying, but his grasp of language felt slippery at times, and there was only so much similes would do for you. After a while, language became like the sight out of his bunk window, the splash of colours that had lifted his soul at first, after a lifetime of white, black and the occasional lick of silver. Now, after eight days of gazing at the green of the land and the orange of uniforms, Finn itched for new visuals.  
  
"I gotta find more words," he told BB-8. "Enrich my vocabulary."  
  
The supportive trill made him wheel his gaze around the room. "Does Poe own any books?" Not that he set much store on that front. Poe was the type to collect vintage flying texbooks. Fuel labels, Finn thought with secret fondness. Not...  
  
...the secret compartment now opened by a babbling BB-8, flashing his longest antenna right above his head. Finn yelped as a swoop of all-coloured books fell about on the bed, his lap, his occiput. The one he picked up deserved his incredulous look. It bore the title _Cruising at Cloud City_  and a picture of two specimens of the male species on a spaceship's catwalk, their uniforms open and disarrayed, their hands locked in each other's hair in a protocol that Finn was sure did not feature in any commander's blueprint for space diplomacy.  
  
"What the everlasting _gfersh_..."

 

* * *

 

Poe's mission took him away for the next day and night, long enough for Finn to peruse his choice of recreational light reading. With burning curiosity and the stormtrooper's ingrained discipline, he read every slim book twice, pausing only to take stock of Poe's scrawls in the margin. Not scholarly notes, these - Poe was of the  _!!!_  and  _phwoarr_  school - but a clear if dotted map of his taste in all things erotica.  
  
Like Poe's bravery, Poe's taste was stolidly one-track. He liked his tropes medium rare; cheered the frisky bedfellows ( _Two in a Starfighter_ ) over the hunky dungeon overlord and his young charge ( _Whose Captive?_ ); rooted for a monogamous agenda ( _Clone Antics_ ); banned  _scum, slave, runt, bunkslut_  and _drink up my blue milk, baby_  from dirty talk while giving a pass to  _Fuck the holy stars out of me_  ( _Burning The Sky with You_ ). Poe liked sultry flesh and loyal hearts, life-affirming journeys ending in comrades meeting, chest to chest and mouth to mouth, while the Force Itself blessed their union with  _an eruptive release that must have jolted every planet out of orbit_.  
  
Dawn came, and Finn thought he was getting the idea.  
  
"You found my stash?" Poe had popped his head in at the door. "Good for you, pal!"  
  
Finn, who was expecting at least one of them to feel self-conscious, found himself answering, "Yeah, they're, huh, quite the pep-up talk."  
  
"There's a new batch flown in on Monday, I'll bag some for you," came the bright reply, opening a new vista on their general's tactics in keeping the troops' morale up and coming. Or taking the Resistance ethos of in and out cooperation to a whole new level, who knew. Then Poe sat on the edge of the bed and asked about Finn, until Finn asked about Poe, and any news of Rey and  _her_  mission, and the conversation pulsed on, warm and easy, until a small rotund nurse beeped Poe firmly out of the room.  
  
"Oh, right," Poe said, leaning down to stroke BB-8's head. "Diary duty. And reporting duty. Yeah. I'll make myself scarce, then."   
  
"I'd swap you," Finn said, bucking at his enforced rest time. Somehow, his foray into Poe's stash had dulled his interest in self-introspection. He coughed, lay back on the mattress which had once born a Poe-shaped indent, pushing his cheek into the pillow. BB-8 uttered a stern triplet.  
  
"Day Ten," Finn said resignedly. "Hey, Diary..."  
  
But his thoughts were flying off at unruly tangents. Poe on mission. Who had been his co-pilot today? Poe was good at co-ing. At comrading. Poe was worth any hero in any batch of tales, and if Finn had his say, he could tell those writers a thing or two about what it felt be a hero at his side, with fate blowing hot and cold on their story.   
  
"Hey, Diary. So I was thinking back..."  
  
He stopped, cringed. Using the first person still felt raw after so many years of emotional neutering. Finn wasn't an innocent. He wasn't a virgin. Sex had been check-listed into his programming along with food and sleep schedules: quick, efficient interludes with the quarter officer timing their climax from his watchroom, then back into the shell which was their body proper. "Like an egg," Poe had joked at one point, except it was just that: his wants and needs still unhatched, still wanting a language that was born with  _Finn_  and now struggled for growth.  
  
Unless...  
  
Unless his story could be…pitched this way, coloured up a bit, and it still told Finn, only differently? Obliquely? Like his fib to Rey that he was one of the Resistance, which  _had_  been a fib, yet true, sort of. Making him more than he was, until he  _was_  more.  
  
Finn opened his eyes to a soft, concerned chirp.  
  
"Mate," he said. "Scratch that and start over. You with me?"  
  
The chirp grew eager.  
  
"Good.  _Chapter One. Cor Peladan was not the tallest or burliest courier on the Dekado system, but his driving skills went unmatched, and his hair, curling casually away from his face..._ "

 

* * *

 

Finn’s quick-change recovery didn’t surprise Finn so much as it did everyone else in the D’Qar vicinity. The day after Poe’s return saw his first step out under the lucent green trees; the next saw him at evening mess. His escape from Kylo Ren’s death nursery had left Finn with one golden rule: if at first you succeed, try again. And again.  
  
"And the diary helped?"  
  
"Oh, yeah." Finn nodded piously. "Got the code in one."  
  
The Medic Guide tapped a finger to one of the holocharts. It showed a cat’s-craddle of lines which Finn had been told stood for his blood pressure, heart rate and a few other vitals. "Hmmm," Dr. V-Noos mused. "When did you say your writing hours were?"  
  
"In the morning," Finn said. "And, huh, part of the afternoon. " He met with a piercing if benevolent stare and swallowed. "Bit more at night. I really have a lot to process."  
  
"Hmmm. You’d think introspective writing helped  _relieve_  tension."   
  
Finn thought it prudent to hum back. He had spent the better part of the day leading Cor Peladan through the mines of Gar’oh, a dark and stifling venue where his hero had lost no time in stripping down to the waist to brave the underground heat. There, Cor had stumbled upon a breathless and equally shirtless body, that of the rogue miner Malko Wyn.  _Cor was still a shadow to him, but a palpable shadow, his nipples damp with sweat as they brushed Malko’s, his gasp warm on Malko's lips, each steadying the other…_    
  
"I said, I’m clearing you for duty on a week probation." Dr. V-Noos, his voice raised, was pulling the last probe off. "On the proviso that you do not let the expressive paradigm get  _too_  uplifting."

 

* * *

  
  
Finn had just got Cor and Malko out of the mines, fleeing the Tetrarch of Gar’oh’s ruthless posse, when the door opened and a gangly droid with a red arm and a soft-starched voice said, "Oh dearie me".  
  
"If you’re looking for Commander Dameron…", Finn started, only for the intruder to reply that the commander had been propped for the last forty minutes against the north-east wall of the sixth barrack, with his head on his knees, and while the temperature did favour an alfresco lunch, the speaker was of the opinion that Commander Dameron would benefit from some looking for, or after, or out for, since the odds that mental and physical exhaustion…  
  
Finn was already out and running, a yodelling BB-8 on his heels. Poe raised his head on their arrival, but said nothing, not when Finn dropped to his knees, not when he hoisted Poe’s arm around his neck and struggled up with him.   
  
"…Two down," Poe finally blurted out when they reached the door. It was still being held open by Threepio. "They caught us… split attack… I have to…"  
  
Finn didn’t answer. He herded his friend across the room and helped him to the bed, sitting him first so he could kneel down and take one heavy boot off, then the other. When Poe finally lay down, the clear afternoon light fell on his face and made it look younger and older, the frown lines etched solid-like between his eyes, the brash vim scraped off him as it had been a life ago, when Finn had first seen him.   
  
"I have to," Poe muttered, but Finn only sat next to him and touched a strand of the dark hair, noticing with a spell of pride how Poe quieted at once. He waited until Poe’s eyelashes made a shadow on his cheek to say "Hush" and touch the back of his fingers to Poe’s frown, which continued in his sleep.  
  
"I never knew," Finn told the silent man. He took his fingers to his mouth almost absently. "I thought you were the one who belonged. I thought you were handsome Cor Peladan, with a name, a place, a purpose. But who catches you when you fall?"  
  
He closed his eyes and thought of Cor and Malko as he’d left them after the explosion which had taken half the mine down. They had reached the sacred Lake of Gar’oh, bruised but triumphant, and launched themselves into each other’s arms. Finn’s plans for them hadn’t gone beyond taking his cue from  _Two in a Starfighter_  and introducing a healthy bout of cockpit copulation, but now he was not so sure.  
  
As if reading his thoughts, BB-8 crackled to life besides him.  
  
"Shhh!" Finn jerked his chin towards the sleeping Poe. "I can’t do this now."  
  
BB-8’s denial was low-pitched, but unmistakable.   
  
"Look…" Finn ran a hand through his hair. "I’m not sure I  _should_  do this, really. I mean, I don’t just want to, huh, make up a story about him and me. It’s not fair to him if it’s all about what I want, and if it’s about what I feel, then it’s not fair to the story. Because the feeling is in me, to the core, but I don’t think I can find the words for it."  
  
"Words?" The prim mechanical voice in his back nearly made him jump. Finn turned in time to see C-3PO raise a hand and finger like an old-school schoolmaster. "If it’s words you require, sir, I might be of assistance. After all, I am fluent in six million forms of communication." 

"What? No!" Finn said, but already the droids were in full communicative swing, tinny scales and arpeggios criss-crossing the air. Finn glanced down worriedly at Poe, but Poe was fast asleep, the exhaustion hard upon him.   
  
"Why, yes," C-3PO was saying in his back." I  _do_  know it is customary in mass-oriented narratives for the protagonist to jump the blaster, as you put it, by the end of chapter 2. But that wouldn’t do at all for Messenger Cor. Not if he is to be a verbal interface for…"  
  
More beeping.  
  
"No, I _don’t_ think sunbathing is an option. Not in a night scenery."  
  
"I…" Finn closed his eyes, opened them again. He took Poe’s hand in his.  _This is what I’d have done if we’d had the time, if you’d agreed, if we hadn’t been kah-boomed apart on that kriffing sandball._  He willed the next words from his heart, prayer-like.  _I hope someone will do it for you. For real. Every time you need it._    
  
"I was thinking, if they’re near a lake, I could have them bathing first. Together. Then Malko can wash Cor and show him… show him his bruises matter,  _he_  matters, and while he does, he… he feels, you know, his body feels kinda uplifted…"  
  
"Tumescent?"  
  
"No! Well, yeah, that too, only more." Finn looked down at Poe’s hand, its weight abandoned to his grasp, like Poe was - once more – trusting him with his mortality. "More like he’s never been let close enough to heal someone, to  _save_  them, it’s like Cor is giving him something that’s always been part of him only he, Malko, didn’t know. It feels…"  
  
"Epiphanic? Lustral? Lambent? Thaumaturgic? Wondrous?"  
  
Poe shifted in his sleep, and Finn thought the lion’s wrinkle between the deep-carved eyes was a little smoother.  
  
"Strictly between ourselves…," he told the droids. A prelude, an order. And a memo to himself. "The whole shebang, I guess."

 

* * *

  
  
_The water felt lustral after the mines’ darkness and the dust and despair of their flight. When Malko walked to where Cor stood, the water up to his waist, it played languidly between his legs, coaxing him forward until he was close at hand and Cor was reaching out across the night-blue expanse. They stood with their hands linked, and the Sacred Lake enveloped them like another sky, stretching every way and star-dappled, and Cor’s face finally visible in the moonlight. Then Malko dipped his hands into the water and raised them to wash the small wound on Cor’s cheekbone, brushing his fingers to the dark circles under his eyes until Cor was smiling, startled by the careful touch._

_Slowly, biting his lip, he began to do the same – letting the water pour over Malko’s neck and shoulders, down the runnel of his spine, down every curve and crack of his flesh until it covered all of Malko and prickled him with new, lambent sensations. He placed his mouth lightly on Cor’s wound, on the wrinkle between his eyes, on the single bang of dark hair falling over Cor’s forehead, and with each touch he felt his heart grow tumescent. He washed every bruise carefully, bending his head for more softhearted kisses where the water had been, until Cor stopped him with one hand to his hip._

_Then every sensation turned liquid, except for the hard claim of Cor’s mouth on his, richer, heavier bliss, and the hard, fast, epiphanic throb as they splashed across the last invisible bound and met in a full-bodied clasp._

 

* * *

 

The next thing he knew, Rey was back, arm in arm with a long-lost, long-haired and largely-scruffy Jedi who came with a mute button. She ran a beeline to Finn, uttering a happy yell when he lifted her and spun her off the ground.   
  
"You’ve made it through!" Rey kept saying, her cheeks creased so hard in a smile they must have hurt.   
  
"And you," was his  _cri du cœur_ , while the Resistance crew whooped and cheered around them.  
  
There was no time to elaborate as General Organa, still clinging to her prodigal brother, called for debrief. But later, in his room, munching on a local dewfruit, she asked, "So, you’re a storyteller now?"  
  
Finn groaned. It made sense that BB-8 should have counted Rey among  _ourselves_ , but…  
  
"I’m a pilot in training," he informed her. "When I’m not a firing instructor. We’re jacks-of-all-trades here."  
  
Rey, true to form, stood her ground. "But you’re a teller too?"  
  
"In my spare time." Finn shrugged, for himself more than her. "Look, it’s no big deal. Just something the medics ordered."  
  
"It's big to me," Rey said. She put one hand on his arm, and when he glanced up at her, her face had the scavenger’s cast to it, hungry and hopeful, and he knew she was back in the past. "When I was on Jakku, you know…things happened, but they happened almost always in the same way. Over and over again. And you can’t let _same_ wear you down, or there’ll be nothing left of you."  
  
"I know." Finn covered her hand with his. "I've been there."  
  
"So… I made it different. In my head. I made it up."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"A different father and mother every night. And no father, sometimes, or a sister instead. Coming back. Sending sign. Or a clue in the sand, an enigma to clear for our reunion. They helped me sleep at night, the stories. They kept me whole. And they made me glad. Does yours?"  
  
"…Yes." Though the last chapters had been more of a sketchy follow-up, now that BB-8 was back to base business and Finn was kept busy by his own chores. But he had seen Cor and Malko safely aboard the evil Tetrarch of Gar’oh’s personal fighter, which they’d taken over to rejoin the Dekado System. It had the benefit of autopilot  _and_  the Tetrarch’s personal couch, which could bed four at a time and was filled with Alderaanian swan down (Threepio’s footnote). A very good time had been had on that couch. "Yes, it makes me glad."  
  
Rey beamed approval. "So, can I hear it?"

* * *

  
It was the Jakku gambit all over again. You simply couldn’t say no to Rey once she’d made up her mind, and Finn found himself reciting all of Chapter 1 to her before he knew better. Rey was the very model of an involved audience: by the time they’d made it to the brink of Chapter 3 and the Sacred Lake, she was clapping her hands excitedly.   
  
"It makes  _me_  glad," she told Finn. "It’s like I can follow Malko’s emotions with each word, and they rev up beautiful. He’s got a twelve-parsec heart, I can tell. And I think Cor will be good for him. When do they shag?"  
  
Finn, taken aback, confirmed that his protagonists did shag. Twice. On four occasions so far.  
  
"Great! So, can I borrow the book? Luke’s teaching me to read."  
  
It took some time to explain about Hutt & Smutt Publishers and why there was no book as of yet, and no likelihood of one coming. Rey’s Stories Give Hope motto stayed undaunted, even after Finn told her he could hardly sign a contract without a registered name, a credit account, and an address other than Secret Resistance Base, The Galaxy.  
  
"Well, it’s not right," Rey said, and left pursing her mouth.   
  
Morning came, and Finn woke up to a top-priority call from the command center. 


	2. Chapter 2

The small committee waiting by the comm station was a mixed bag. Finn made out the General and Luke Skywalker, Rey and BB-8, two or three bemused technicians. All ominously silent, although Rey wriggled her fingers to him.  
  
General Organa was the first to speak. "Something rather inordinary happened overnight."  
  
Finn stared his query.  
  
"As you know, we make a point of screening nearly all of our comms-out. With our closest allies, we have an open if strictly monitored channel. All other communications are one-sided – we send anonymous messages, so to say, in blind trust that they will be received and acted upon."  
  
"Yes, General."  
  
"However, Rey came to me yesterday with a suggestion. One that would enable us to code out as if we were transmitting from any chosen location – say, the Kurdan Desert –with no chance of detection. The answer would be relayed back to us through a similar protocol."  
  
At this point, the mute Jedi broke into speech. "One small step for Rey," he said. "One giant leap for the Resistance."  
  
"It’s nothing much, really." Rey beamed on them all. "Just trick the interlink into a reverse…"  
  
General Organa raised her hand. "I asked Rey to place a maiden call. An innocuous one, should her stratagem fail. The answer went through thirty minutes ago." She motioned to one of the techs, who pushed a few buttons. A screen lit up with the message. "It appears to come from one, ah, Hutt & Smutt corporation."  
  
Finn, who had been trained to ascertain all worst-case scenarios and meet them upfront, did not blush. But he did wonder if Starkiller had been a small order, all things considered.   
  
"The answer is for you, Lieutenant Finn. It is only fair you should access it."  
  
Finn looked over at the screen. It still felt unreal, as if he’d woken up to find that his story, the darling of his heart, had only been part of a greater, wider scheme that was its own author, riding its twists and cliffhangers with strange confidence while he stood by, a dazed witness. His heart pounding, he let his eyes skim over  _tight-knit, titillating prose_ and  _a refreshing approach to the homoerotic plot_ , paused at  _we would, given its incomplete status, be amenable to a series_  and winced only once, when the letter mentioned options, royalties, and interpretative dances on cantina nights.   
  
Then he came to the offer proper, and his eyes widened.  
  
He turned back to Leia Organa, his face urgent. "If I do this, will you take the credits? Winter’s coming. We’ll need fuel and protein speed-feeds. And I don’t have an account, anyway."  
  
"I will, if you let me return them." Then she smiled, though her eyes remained under a clear wistful haze. "It’s much the safer bet, life taught me, to repay one’s debts without delay."  
  
There was silence again, but no longer tense: another donation to Leia, a gift to remembrance as Rey’s hand quietly stole into Finn’s. It was only interrupted when a new figure strode in, his helmet tucked under his arm. "General," Poe Dameron said. He gave her an impeccable salute and the rest of the room a bold wink. "Permission to borrow Finn for an hour? My X-wing awaits his early morning lesson."  
  
"Oh, yes, yes." General Organa, startled out of her haze, touched her coronet braid. "Rey, you remember Commander Dameron? He’s our flying head-of-command."   
  
With brusque and unprecedented horror, Finn watched as Rey just stared and stared, and Poe stared back. Poe’s gaze flicked to him, then back to Rey, and for a couple of seconds a shadow glitched on his comely face. Rey simply stared on, taking in Poe’s dark hair, his sideburns, the one little bang that curled over his forehead... "Oh," she said dully.  
  
"Hey!" Poe riposted in mock-outrage. "I may not be the tallest poppy out there, but I’m one hell of a good pilot!"  
  
" _Oh_ ," Rey said, and Finn wondered if the Story would end there and then, with his untimely (though unblushing) demise.   
  
But it was too late. Lieutenant Finn had signed himself away as a romance author, and the Story would go on, with or without the author’s by-your-leave.

 

* * *

 

 _Hyperdrive my Heart_  (not Finn’s choice) hit the Resistance on the following Tuesday. Finn’s shaky faith in his cover name (Thilious Zarbo, really not his choice) was ruined the moment C-3PO waddled up to him in plain squadron view, holding out a stack of books, saying "Your author’s copies, sir".  
  
The hype, to quote Rey, revved up beautiful. By noon, the books seemed to have gone forth and multiplied all over D’Qar. Pilots in their white and orange fatigues were tossed one the moment their feet touched home base. In the conference room, Admirals Ackbar and Statura shared one good-naturedly between their laps. Rumour that Finn held offprint copies with an extended version of the Sacred Lake ablutions reached full throttle within the day. And Dr. Kalonia’s opinion that here at last was a romance that did not read like a podrace to Supreme Enabler Male Prostate was echoed back to Finn by six reliable sources.  
  
Finn bore it all with fortitude. Being a popular author had its perks, making up for the achingly blank slate that was his own tale up to a month ago. It didn’t hurt, either, that the rocketing sales would see them through the harsh season with enough proteins and fuel to boost men and machines.   
  
But there was still the fact that the illustrator had, for once, read the book and come up with a strikingly fit front piece. Cor and Malko stood on the eve of parting, Cor already wrapped in the hermit’s gear that would ease his incognito trek to his native waste land, before he delivered the Sacred Name due to heal it. Malko was turning his head back for a last good-bye, a chapter before he ran into the plucky nomad girl Kya. His lost profile only showed the curve of a dark-brown cheek under the long hair favoured by the artist, but Cor stood full front, his face open and pleading, and while he didn’t look exactly like Poe, it didn’t take a Maz Kanata to observe that neither did he look  _not_  like Poe.   
  
It was a good thing, Cor’s maker reflected, that he was back to warring and mostly outdoors these days.   
  
Less of a good thing that Poe had become an out-and-out outdoor guy. Finn had barely seen him since Rey’s return. Poe left at dawn, ate on the fly, and generally behaved as if his true vocation was to experience a whole new level of far, far away. More often than not, he flew in with new bruises. Once or twice he flew days late, only to take off at reveille. To Finn, who had no idea if Poe was getting a raw deal from High Command or flat-out avoiding him, this was jarring.  
  
He tried to corner Poe. If the Story had in mind to end with a bang and an apology, so be it. They were both ex-Army brats, but Finn at least prided himself on having fully rounded his transition to Army man. By now, he felt holistic enough to look into his heart and give Poe the readout, chapter and verse; and if Poe said oh boy, not on your life, buddy, then Finn would man up, cover his literary debut with ashes and volunteer for transfer to another HQ.  
  
But Poe wouldn’t be cornered. Not until the night when Finn showed up late at mess to be hailed by Jess and Chewie, who had kept him a seat. The moment he sat down, he realized that the benchful of pilots was hot in debate. No, neg that. Was hot in a literary tug-of-war, with Blue Squad calling the shots. 

"…clue is in the handjob scene," Snap Waxley was saying. Loudly. "Man, you gotta think subtext. Betcha two credits them kissing each other’s knuckles after the act was young Finn letting us know they just got handfasted."  
  
Young Finn, seated at the very end of the bench next to Chewie’s salutary bulk, fought the impulse to turn up Poe’s jacket collar.   
  
"Yeah, no." Lieutenant Bastian shook his head. "Cor’s gotta do some explaining home before he gets hitched. Dammit, if it comes to that, he’s gotta come clean to Malko about his feelings. I mean, there’s showing, and there’s showing, and then there’s closing down the kriffing show and letting Cor get it off his chest. Malko’s been waiting long enough!"  
  
This earned the speaker a few whistles and at least one "Ain't we all!" On the opposite bench, Nien Nunb let out a warble in his native Sullustan tongue.  
  
"Three credits on a redemption arc for the Tetrarch," his neighbour translated. More lilting syllables followed. "And sometimes, a job is a job."  
  
" _My_  bet" – Jess Parva had to yell across the rowdy hubbub – "is, we’re getting Cor’s point of view first thing next book." She turned to wink at the half-concealed Finn. "When Kya smuggles him into the Singing Sands."  
  
" _Out_  of the Sa –," Finn began, only to be curtailed by a fierce growl, one he recognized as  _No spoilers, cub_.  
  
His ears were still ringing when they caught the tail end of another speech. It came from the far end on Finn’s side, the blind spot in his own point of view, but the tones were familiar enough to jolt his blood to a scalding rush.   
  
"…together? It’s clear enough to me who Malko’s intended is."  
  
A chorus of  _Whaaa?_ greeted Poe Dameron’s contribution to narratology.  
  
"Series, guys. Seriously." Poe’s tones were their crisp, self-confident selves – almost. "It’s a law of the genre: when it comes to romance, second time’s the charm. Exit Cor, enter Kya."  
  
"No, no, _no_! She’s his half-sis –"

But a hairy, brawny arm dropped around Finn's neck, complete with a hairy hand acting as a gag. Chewie, it seemed, was staking no bet on a leak.  
  
"Son." Red Ten, an Endor old trooper, sounded as confused as the rest. "Have you actually read the book?"  
  
"Cover to cover." Stiffer tones. A shuffle, a body making free from his own end of the bench. Poe’s arm shot into visibility, holding out what looked like a deluxe edition of  _Hyperdrive my Heart_ , drenched in chrome violet. He pointed to the front cover. "Parting of the ways confirmed." A flutter of pages, a skip to the end. "Editor’s note confirmed. _Will Malko hear again of raffish, daredevil Cor? Or will he follow the lovely Kya to the Light side of the Force and a match made in space?_  Cor can thank his stars he wasn’t killed in the first tier."

  
"But…" the chorus wailed, while Finn, flailing, damned Hutt & Smutt to Jakku.  
  
"With all due respect, boss, that’s phooey!"  
  
"Yeah! Don’t trust the blurb, trust the Blues!"  
  
"Man! _Knuckles_!"  
  
"Guys…" Poe’s tones made it clear that Poe's smile was wearing thin. "Keep the ruckus down, please? And the good fight up. I’ll see you all back from recon."  
  
"Solo recon?" The old trooper was all but gawking. "After curfew?"  
  
"Desperate times," came the curt reply. "Gotta go. Do some…leader thing. That desperate measure’s not gonna take itself."  
  
And like that, just when Finn was ready to look doom in the eye and bite Chewie, Poe was gone. Well under radar, by the time Finn had prised himself loose and elbowed his way through the crowded hall. His feet were dragging when they led him back to the table.  
  
To the pilots’ credit, they had all stayed put. Nien Nunb’s large black eyes poured him a significant glance while he spoke.  
  
"He says, a sad case of reader’s fallacy." The neighbour leant across the table to pat Finn’s hand. "Tough, mate."  
  
More glances. More, mournful shakes of the head.  
  
"Man’s a Wookiee-ass fighter," Snap said. "And, man. He’s a knucklehead."  
  
"Say that again." Jess was rising too. "Well, I know what  _I_  gotta do." She punched Finn’s shoulder lightly by way of consolation. "And what I gotta do, I’m gonna do before he desperate-measures himself into a sinkhole. Buck up, sweetheart. He’ll come round all right."

 

* * *

  
  
"You’re grounding _me_?" The sheer unfairness of it had Finn stare at High Command in disbelief.  
  
"Not a disciplinary measure, Lieutenant. Far from it. But in view of all present circumstances…"  
  
"There’s a disturbance –" Luke and Rey, who had spoken of one accord, stopped to gaze at each other fondly.  
  
"Ah,  _mythos_." Somehow, Dr. V-Noos had found his way to the emergency meeting. "That would be the Arousal of Strong and Spectacular Passions?"  
  
"Preach it, brother." A mutter from Jess Parva.   
  
"But Counter-Recruiting Operation starts at noon!" Finn certainly felt aroused to a pitch of frustration. "Operating _me_! How am I supposed to testify about my life with the First Order from my bunk?"  
  
"Lieutenant." Even in dire straits, General Leia Organa was not a woman to pinch the bridge of her nose. She did, however, close her eyes for the briefest second. "My Snoke-addled son is bent on destroying us all. My best pilot is flying close to an existential breakdown. And my crew is too busy cheering for Team Malcor to focus on primary tasks. I think I speak for the Republic when I say that we need that sequel, and we need it now."  
  
Admiral Ackbar gave a gravelly cough. "Speaking for the _galaxy_ , I second the general’s motion. Or…"  
  
"Or we’re all farkled," Admiral Statura said, ever the voice of logic.

 

* * *

 

 _The Tetrarch himself never moved, silhouetted against the silver orchards of Dekado like a dark and daunting monolith while his laughter rose out of him. To Cor, the sound defiled everything he had loved and stood for as far as he could remember. But he too stood his ground, his curls and his scowl defiant to the last._  
  
_"You fool!" His adversary took a predatory step. "You yourself have brought on this ruin – through your own lack of faith! Now look upon me and despair, Cor Peladan."_  
  
_"Never!" Cor tilted his chin up, his last, agonized stand against the pain clawing at his soul. "Kill me if you must, but Dekado will live on, for Dekado_  is _the faith! Dekado_  is _the hope! ’Tis the home in my lover’s heart, blooming for me with more gardens and fountains than the whole blue expanse of_ , er, ah,  _of Tatooine…_  
  
"Young man, Tatooine isn’t precisely – "  
  
"Hush, Master Luke. The chances of Master Finn bringing off a happy ending are currently 894 to 1."  
  
" _The Tetrarch’s feral breath turned to a roar, loud enough that the very pillars shuddered in the ancient hall. "Love!" he cried out in derision. "From a mine slave? And where is he now, that creature of mine? Did he not forsake you when he fled away, though not alone, as my faithful informers have told me?"_  
  
_"Never!" The new voice filled the hall, warm and vibrant, as Malko and Kya lunged into the scene. The black pain in Cor wilted suddenly, wonderfully, chased by an impetus of joy. Malko here! Malko, who had come for him! As they reached out to each other across the hall, Malko gave Kya’s hand a hopeful squeeze and_ … Threepio, you with me?"  
  
"Yes, sir. May I venture to suggest that it would be more in character for Protagonist Malko to  _drop_  Kya’s hand by now?"  
  
"Hey! Luke says we’ve more than met the family quota!"  
  
" _...and ran to where Cor lay, his face lifted to greet Malko with the reckless, radiant smile that was all Cor. Their lips met before their gaze, and it was then, in that goldbrown flash whose truth came from the deepest, deep-buried layer in their…"_  
  
"The general’s compliments, mate, and if ya would kindly…"  
  
"Yes! Yes! Give me ten! _…devotion that they knew, without a moment’s doubt, what the Sacred Name truly was. Together, their hands fastened in the shape of a heart, they turned to the Tetrarch and...."_

 

* * *

  
"… _The Tetrarch bowed his head. "I stand humbled," he said._ "We  _is well and truly sacred, and, spoken by the two of you, will bring Dekado to a newborn age." He knelt down, and Cor and Malko, still entwined, walked past him together. Together they entered the silver orchards, to watch morning rise above the trees, the revived city, the first day of an age where they would never again be parted."_ General Organa closed the file. "Yes, that should do the trick. Although…"   
  
She angled her head sideways in contemplation. The comm tech at her side hovered respectfully, as did Finn.  
  
"He’s still incommunicado. Still trapped somewhere between the heroic and the stubborn, and never budging until you speak the word. Laserbrains, the lot of them." When she turned to Finn, Leia’s face bore the memory of a smile. "Take an old woman’s advice and the direct approach, Lieutenant – it’s a good payoff."  
  
The next three words were whispered in his ear, and Finn, his eyes rounding, had an  _oh_  moment of his own.

 

* * *

 

The Story went for a turn of the screw and brought Poe back in synch with the supply courier. Their ships landed wing to wing, a moment before Finn was grabbed by an excited Snap yelling, "He’s back! Get your choobles on course, man!"  
  
Later, Finn would be hard put to remember how he’d made the next leg of course. Strange visions would endure, of Snap herding him through a motley crowd of pilots, techs, meds, Skywalkers & Co, who parted at his sight and rallied on his heels. Their buoyant wave carried Finn all the way up and he walked with his head high, swirled by a sudden clarity of knowing what was to be done. As the starfighters came in view, and he caught a peep of Poe climbing out of the canopy, Finn waved at him with a brilliant grin.  
  
Then he swerved, hailed, and – "Catch!" – let his raised hand block the slim book lobbed to him by the courier.   
  
"Here." His next stride had taken him to an open-mouthed Poe. Finn, still grinning, slapped the book to his chest. "For you. To be read cover to cover, and don’t you skip the –"   
  
If he could, he would have enjoyed the half-unsure, half-certain light rising in Poe’s eyes. And the cyberola he got from a delighted BB-8. But the emergency siren was too quick for them. The audience stilled; the audience wheeled in a body – for a bird-shaped shadow had just appeared in the sky.

Flappity-flap. Flappity-flap. Kylo Ren’s shuttle was circling over their heads like a big, black and somewhat bashful albatross.  
  
"He’s coding for parley!" a wise voice cried anon.  
  
There was a general turnabout, followed by a general jog as the ship landed a hundred yards further along the field. Its ramp was lowered, ushering a slender figure out. The newcomer wore black robes in sore need of a hem. He had a black mask on, black gloves, held a black lightsaber in one hand and in the other a brand new copy of  _Twelve-Parsec Hearts_.  
  
"Greetings," Kylo Ren said. "I come in p–"   
  
" _BEN!_ " The crowd parted once more for General Organa. "Take that helmet off this instant. You're much too young to fake catarrhal inflammation."  
  
"Mommy!" The speaker tried to cross his arms, found this involved more juggling than his props could take, and settled for an aggrieved tone. "I’m  _speaking_."  
  
His gaze fell on Finn and, with a relieved "ah!", Kylo Ren shuffled forward.   
  
"Greetings," he repeated. "I come in answer to your call, FN-2187. Seek no more: your words have shown me the light and here I am, your leader and your paramour."   
  
For the first time since forever, Finn said "Huh?"

Kylo Ren dropped his lightsaber. The clang of steel to iron made Finn wince, even as his interlocutor licked a gloved finger, turned a page and cleared his throat. " _To Black Leader, the one and only ever since you gave me a name and made me yours. Fly home to me, please._ " The speaker narrowed his eyes. "Do I have to Force-feed you your own words?"  
  
"Erm…" Finn licked his lips. _Add a dedication_ , Leia had advised, and Finn, Leia’s man to the bone, had done just that. With unpredicted and slightly unnerving consequences.  
  
"If I may." Poe Dameron had suddenly turned up at his side. His face a sunburnt scowl, he walked up to Kylo Ren, snatched the book, tore the first page out and turned on his heels.   
  
"What are you… why, you… you… blast you! What do you think you’re doing?"  
  
"Only taking what’s mine, buddy." Poe shrugged and crossed back to Finn, his face now lit up by a smile that was all white teeth and Poe chutzpah. No, not crossed: homed in on Finn, resolutely, until they were facing each other, chest to chest, and Finn’s arms were rising to match his. The kiss that followed was a twosome: a warm pledge of will and muscles, fervent, lasting and final – if a lot sloppier than Cor and Malko’s textbook model.   
  
"Ours, if you’ll have me," Poe finally said, and the whole base erupted in glee.

 

* * *

  
  
There was a new era, there were cheers and fireworks, there was a Sith-size tantrum. Poe and Finn only gave it a token show of concern, so busy were they in putting Poe’s new reading skills to good use.  
  
"Can I ask you something?" the latter said two hours later. He smelt of sun and sweat, but so did Finn, and the sweet ripple of victory had been shared and shared alike in their common bunk.  
  
"Sure." Finn tightened the clasp of their legs together and brushed an encouraging tongue to Poe’s underlip, still caught between Poe’s teeth. "What’s biting you?"  
  
"Just, I was thinking… are you gonna write another of these?"  
  
Finn sighed. "Dunno. Yeah, maybe. Hutt & Smutt’ll be slobbering down my neck any time soon. Why?"  
  
"Because if you do" - Poe released his much-abused lip for Finn to kiss it better – "then I want Cor to stroke and fondle every inch of Malko’s body and praise it as he does." And Poe’s fingers, not the last of many times, began a warmhearted trail over Finn’s hair, his cheek, his generous mouth. "Can you do this?" Poe asked under his breath. "For me? Can you write it?"  
  
Finn took the roving hand in his and kissed Poe’s knuckles before he answered.  
  
"For you?" He smiled to see Poe remember, then return the gesture with eager lips. "I can write anything."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dr. V-Noos's mention of _mythos_ (plot or story) as arousing "strong and spectacular passions" was ripped off Aristotle's Poetics.


End file.
